Bio-Based Phase Change Material Market is an Upcoming Opportunity

The Phase Change Material Market finds new opportunities with the application of bio-based PCM. This PCM has added advantages over the organic-based PCM as these do not pose the problem of high flammability and low biodegradability. Europe is the largest market for organic-based PCM while Americas is the largest market for inorganic and bio-based PCM. However the growth of PCM is estimated to be the highest in Europe for the next five years.
The worldwide demand for high performance (efficient) materials is driving the market for R&D in phase change materials. This has attracted a great amount of R&D initiatives leading to the adoption of several technologies such as microencapsulation and molecular encapsulation for better integration of PCMs in the end products.

There are collaborations with research institutions to further increase the applications of PCM products. For instance, Outlast Technologies (PCM manufacturer) partnered with Jockey (U.S.) to increase the use of its textile PCMs into apparels. Industry players are thus constantly making efforts to strengthen their phase change material process development due to tremendous pressure within the industry to be cost competitive.

Phase change materials play a major role in stabilizing the temperature of the immediate environment, while enhancing thermal comfort along with reducing green house gas (GHG) emission. Major PCM manufacturers such as BASF (Germany) and Rubitherm (Germany) obtain purified raw material (paraffin for organic-based PCM and salt hydrates for inorganic-based PCM) from companies, namely Chevron (U.S.) and Shell (The Netherlands), and manufacture by formulating these raw materials with different crystallization agents. Subsequently, processes such as macroencapsulation or microencapsulation integrate these PCMs in the end products.